TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Understanding Happiness, expert explorers of the mind chart our understanding of how happiness is created and cultivated. Their insights challenge our most basic cultu...

What a year! These 14 talks challenged our perceptions of love, happiness, what the future will hold ... and, um, the very nature of reality itself.

Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister takes the audience on a whimsical journey through moments of his life that made him happy -- and notes how many of these moments have to do with good design.

Using simple, delightful illustrations, designer Stefan Sagmeister shares his latest thinking on happiness -- both the conscious and unconscious kind. His seven rules for life and design happiness can (with some customizations) apply to everyone seeking more joy.

We all strive for happiness -- but we spend most of our lives learning to be unhappy, says Srikumar Rao. In this practical talk, he teaches how to break free of the "I'd be happy if ..." mental model, and embrace our hard-wired happiness.

We are so preoccupied with happiness that the Declaration of Independence guarantees our right to pursue it. But are we doing it right? Historian Caroline Winterer argues that what the founding fathers meant was public happiness, the need for citizens to work collectively toward a robust democracy. "Only public happiness," she explains, "creates...

From work and happiness, to love and success (and everything else in between), these talks offer insights on some of life's biggest secrets.

Cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff looks at happiness -- the ways we try to achieve and increase it, the way it's untethered to our real circumstances, and its surprising effect on our bodies.

Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world's most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.

Writer and designer Graham Hill asks: Can having less stuff, in less room, lead to more happiness? He makes the case for taking up less space, and lays out three rules for editing your life.

How do you rediscover a happier, more purpose-driven (and less productivity-obsessed) self in the wake of the pandemic? Quiz yourself alongside work futurist Dominic Price as he lays out a simple yet insightful four-part guide to assessing your life in ways that can help you reconnect with what's really important.

At TEDxCambridge, Michael Norton shares fascinating research on how money can indeed buy happiness -- when you don't spend it on yourself. Listen for surprising data on the many ways pro-social spending can benefit you, your work, and (of course) other people.

What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment.

The phrase "comparison is the thief of joy" might be the kind of cliché that makes you roll your eyes — and yet, it's an idea that is, scientifically, pretty accurate. In today's episode, psychologist Laurie Santos — a Yale professor and host of "The Happiness Lab" podcast — discusses some of the surprising evidence behind what does and doesn't ...

"Tipping Point" author Malcolm Gladwell gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce -- and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.

Eve Ensler, creator of "The Vagina Monologues," shares how a discussion about menopause with her friends led to talking about all sorts of sexual acts onstage, waging a global campaign to end violence toward women and finding her own happiness.

We've all heard the adage 'money doesn't buy happiness' and rolled our eyes a little. So life satisfaction researcher Daniel Sachau went a step further and decided to test the theory. In this eye-opening talk, Sachau examines the practical reasons why, once you hit a particular level of wealth, a big bank balance no longer corresponds with a hig...

Success is energizing. But it's also anxiety-provoking and exhausting. Each time we achieve it, we often tend to immediately seek out the next step upward. Drawing on a two-decade career in executive search, interviewing thousands of the most successful people in the world, Laura Gassner Otting explains why success doesn't bring happiness, and h...

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi asks, "What makes a life worth living?" Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of "flow."

A fun, uplifting challenge: For the next 10 days, watch one TED Talk from this list to shift yourself into a life of positive thinking.

Many people would say the connection between happiness and gratefulness is very simple: when you are happy, you are grateful. But think again. Is it really the happy people that are grateful? Quite a number of people have everything that it would take to be happy, and they are not happy. So, how does gratefulness work? Explore the key components...

Dan Gilbert, author of "Stumbling on Happiness," challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don't go as planned.

In this deeply moving talk, Eddie Jaku -- a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor -- recounts his experiences and the powerful lessons he learned about the search for happiness.

How to be happier at work? Start by focusing on happiness -- not, surprisingly, on work. We learned this fun fact from Shawn Achor's TED Talk. So we asked Achor to choose some more talks he loves, about making work and life a happier place.

For artist Jennifer Allison, everyday sounds can be overwhelming, certain clothes feel like rubbing against a cactus, and the number four is always royal blue. Allison suffers from a neurological condition called Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), which causes her brain to react to stimuli in illogical and sometimes painful ways. Through her wil...

For months Uma Adwani struggled to make a living in a new city, until she was hired to teach a subject she loathed most: math. Growing up Adwani despised the subject, but as she developed lesson plans for her class, she began to fall in love with its magic, poetry and symmetry. In this talk, Adwani shares the secret wisdom she's found hidden in ...

How to Be a Better Human The science of happiness (w/ Laurie Santos) January 23, 2023 [00:00:00] Chris Duffy: You are listening to How to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy. Here's a strange thing that I have noticed about my own brain. Often, the times that I feel the happiest are where I have a lot of irons in the fire. There's a...

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert delves deep into the weird, counterintuitive science of happiness -- and explains why our minds worry about things we needn't worry about (and fail to worry about things we really should worry about). (Audio only)

City planners are already busy designing futures full of bike paths and LEED-certified buildings. But are they designing for our happiness? It's hard to define, and even harder to plan for, but urban planner Thomas Madrecki has a simple solution: Ask the public.

After watching the collection of talks on Understanding Happiness, read a thoughtful recap of the major points in this TED Study, and learn where experts believe things are headed. Positive psychology: The wrap-up The field of positive psychology has already helped us to better understand happiness. As Martin Seligman explained, traditional psyc...